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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

What is the history of slavery in the Islamic / Arab middle east? When did those countries abolish it? I think it was fairly recent, some in the 20th century... I mean not counting recent the scandal from the guardian about migrant workers who can’t get an exit visa.

PS: I am curious why asking about continuing slavery in other parts of the world importing Black slaves is so heavily downvoted. Aren’t people equal regardless of where in the world they are? Why discourage concern and knowledge about slavery of people of African descent??

This is like when the Paris attacks happened and the world was lit up in French colors while on the same day the same group (ISIS) killed just as many people at a stadium Beirut, Lebanon and no one seemed to even mention them. We need to move past our navel gazing.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/world/middleeast/beiru...

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According to this story, the last country to abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981: http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slav...

Why did it take so long?

EDIT: again, heavily downvoted for merely inquiring why slavery in the middle east persisted

It seems it’s only acceptable to discuss the moral failings of the US, or attacks on Westerners, while peoples and nations in the middle east are “below” criticism or comment eh? “We” are too englightened and talking about “them” is diverting the conversation from what really matters?

I think this one sentence from that article gives a strong clue:

"Activists are arrested for fighting the practice."

Everyone is always quick these days (at least, here in the US) to decry "Social Justice Warriors" as if they are a bad thing ... but for many across the world and across history, they were the saving grace; someone who dared ask, "why are we doing this?"

It's not everyone using social justice warrior as a pejorative, it's assholes.

I guess I know a lot of assholes :)

You get judged on your actions; you don't get a pass because someone vaguely similar to you did good things.

Absolutely! Actions should be more important than the names. However the names are not just labels, they often have meanings.

Don't confuse people "who dared ask, "why are we doing this?"" with people who want reparations, affirmative action, etc. And that's just a second definition I've thrown out there, alongside yours, when there's many more.

You reference those things as if they are a "bad thing" ... they are not universally "bad things". They are merely individual actions/tools/incentives to right historical wrongs. It's not wrong for people to want to right those wrongs, even if someone else feels that other actions would be more efficient at righting those wrongs ... that's a valid discussion to have, not summarily dismissing people proposing solutions.

>You reference those things as if they are a "bad thing"

More accurately, as if they are not obviously noble, since you conflated everyone to have been called SJW with someone brave and insightful. But yeah I do think those things are intrinsically wrong.

You were probably downvoted because people suspected what your edit demonstrates: that you were trying to whatabout attention away from the US.

You’re absolutely allowed to criticize other countries (Mauritania is pretty far from the Middle East BTW), but when you suddenly bring them up in a conversation that’s specifically about the US and a prominent figure in the American abolitionist movement, it looks like you’re trying to deflect. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, but it looks like the downvoters got it right.

I agree with the rest of your comment, but I absolutely must clarify:

Mauritania is considered to be a constituent part of the "Maghreb" region, which, while it isn't the Middle East, it is certainly a part of the "Arab World".

Furthermore, Mauritania has a crescent and star on their flag, and their state religion is Islam.

Yes, the whole point of my aside there was to correct the tendency to say “Middle East” when taking about the Arab or Islamic world.

Why do you think the downvoters got it right?

When Paris was attacked, and Beirut on same day, only France was being remembered. Somehow we haven't yet learned to care about people being hurt in other places in the world if we're not living there, if it's not part of "us". We need to start thinking of people as equal regardless of where they live.

Anyway, when I saw that Facebook only let you put up the French flag I made https://customizeyourpic.com

And you can hear what I really think in the video there.

I think they got it right that you’re not interested in discussing the topic at hand, and would rather hijack the conversation to talk about your pet issues.

The topic at hand is slavery of Black people.

I am talking about slavery of Black people that continued to happen and, by the way, is happening today.

And instead of discussing the actual issue, it’s considered hijacking?

I have seen Hacker News comments of all types on an article, some heavily upvoted, that are on a tangential topic. Very often they were even political or opinions on other tech platforms or the landscape of tech in the FIELD of the article.

It happens so often on HN that I am truly bewildered as to how this is not just special pleading / double standard invoked specifically because what I am doing is currently politically incorrect: talking about issue X happening more recently and in the rest of the world, which takes away from talking about the history of the country where most HNers live.

Just step away for a second and think about it. Is it really a healthy response when I say Black people have continued to be enslaved long after the Emancipation proclamation in the USA, that for millions of Negroes in other parts of the world this continued, to say it is “hijacking to talk about my pet issues”?

If you'd like to discuss slavery elsewhere, why don't you post a substantive article on the topic? That's what Hacker News posts are: a story and a discussion about that story.

Is this the norm on Hacker News that asking about continuing abuses in other parts of the world is not relevant to the topic about historical abuses in the USA, and one needs to get their own topic heavily upvoted to get a discussion?

When your post reads like "rationalist" (read: white supremacist/American nationalist) whataboutism and seems to be there just to pivot to What About The Islams, Man, having a mod like 'sctb suggest you chill out is a pretty light response.

Not saying your post is that. But I am saying that if somebody of that mind wanted to derail some things, they'd write your post.

EDIT: Ah. Saw your comments elsewhere in the thread. Sorry for giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Music to my ears. HN officialy doesn't like topics derailing.

> PS: I am curious why asking about continuing slavery in other parts of the world importing Black slaves is so heavily downvoted.

Because it sounds very much like whataboutism. In an article about the US and slavery, you're talking about how other cultures may have been worse--ones completely unrelated to the current discussion.

I understand it sounds like whataboutism, but whatboutism is one of the most dangerous labels. It allows people to just dismiss conversation about current and pressing issues in the world in favor of navel gazing at a far less pressing issue. It provides cover for human rights abuses in countries which were conveniently “not the subject” of conversation initially.

Like when women in the world are trafficked into sex slavery, married off as children, honor killings, caste rapes etc. and a charge of “whataboutism” is used to refocus on how a default avatar in social networks is unfairly male instead of female.

It has been over a century since slavery was abolished in the USA yet it persisted and persists around the world now. I think it SHOULD be talked about, and analyzed and solved, whether or not it is whataboutism, just like we should talk about malaria or anything else. Just because it isn’t happening here doesn’t mean it’s not a BIGGER and more pressing problem.

So just cause someone coined a stupid word doesn’t mean you get to dismiss issues affecting millions of people or excuse a double standard. Go beyond virtue signaling and care about actual utilitarian statistics and solutions.

I would argue the supremacists are those who focus exclusively on their own ethnic group and navel gaze at their own coutry at the expense of people worldwide.

> virtue signaling

the use of this meme seems seems rather correlated with a particular group of people.

So is the whataboutism meme

not really, no. it's mostly people not being a fan of diversionary tactics and misdirection, and from what i've seen that's fairly widespread.

Then do as 'sctb said and post a substantiative, thought-provoking article about it. I'd be happy to discuss the issue there, because it is an important one. Bad shit does happen today, and needs to be discussed.

But the fallout of the bad shit from the past matters too and trying to diminish that here suggests that your motives are not as pure as your representation of them suggests. Which may not be your intention...buuuut...I'd bet that way, Monsieur "Virtue Signal", Señor "They're The Real Supremacists", Mister "Let's Talk About Anybody But Me".

Willing to be wrong, though. Put up.

I would say the motives of those who talk about historical wrong X in the past while obstructing discssion of X happening today are also not pure. Everyone should evaluate themselves. That’s why I am not backing down and just agreeing. I find “calling whataboutism” to be disingenuous cover for double standards (speaking in general, not about anyone in particular).

I am happy to talk about things if the intention is genuine. The people who care about historical wrong X seem to put up pedantic walls as soon as they are asked to care about X much closer and much more pressing to us. “Make another topic on HN and get it upvoted and maybe I will talk about slavery of Black people that has been happening in regions where it’s not as cool to critique at the moment.” Doesn’t seem to fit on a site where comments to “I invented a decentralized permissionless movie streaming platform” is “your site is green bleh” or some other thing. But talking about Black people being enslaved today is “diverting attention” from an article about Black people being enslaved by the country of which I am a citizen. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/series/modern...

It is a form of soft bigotry to me, if analyzed without the filter. A light form of collective insanity. And it doesn’t have to do with slavery in particular but pick any X issue.

"I would argue the supremacists are those who focus exclusively on their own ethnic group and navel gaze at their own coutry at the expense of people worldwide."

And sometimes they're just responding to a topical article like a link to Frederick Douglass' speech on the 4th of July

So was I. Fredrick Douglass spoke about the experience of the Negro being enslaved in USA. That was a powerful image. Normally, it would be quite appropriate to point out that people from the same continent, with the same skin, were enslaved also in Arab countries all through the 20th century and discuss the institution of slavery there and how it compared throughout history with the US institution. (Mamluks for example.) It can unearth a lot of interesting and historically useful information. But more to the point, Black people are being enslaved even today, but you would prefer to suppress this fact because why? Because freedom and independence wasn’t for everyone in Douglass time, IN THE USA. And what, only the USA matters?

I am just trying to get you to see that if this was any other topic on HN, like eg a speech by Linus Torvalds about Git, a wide array of comments would be perfectly fine eg someone asking whether distributed VCS has really taken off, or (like I did) whether people still use centralized version control in some companies.

Here we are talking about the lives of human beings. But apparently Black lives matter ONLY in the USA, women’s lives matter only in the USA, because mentioning current honor killings of women in some countries is racist. That is a perverse reaction and no, saying it’s “off topic” just makes it worse. You either don’t actually care about women's rights or ending slavery, or there is some overriding principle I am still not aware of that makes the same exact issue outside the USA so off topic as to be essentially unwelcome as a comment!

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